“I like to make simple clothes and started this collection by reducing the number of fabrics to two different types. The first fabric appealed to me because it appears fluid, is a bi-stretch and machine washable. The other fabrics are silks of varying weights and finishes that share the characteristic of being finely woven and stiff.”
– Yeohlee Teng on YEOHLEE Spring 2004
For YEOHLEE Spring 2004, Yeohlee Teng constructs the collection in two different ways, each determined by the character of the individual fabric. She treats some of the textiles as two dimensional geometric planes and by suspending the rectangles, squares and triangles from the shoulder or the waist a third dimension is created. These gabardine and satin organdy shapes then become voluminous when they move. Other fabrics that have structure, particularly the silk zibeline, are sculpted with muslin and paper into shapes of bells and urns.
Yeohlee’s color story developed as a means of establishing a mood, as well as a way to identify the wearer as part of an order. Black/brown and spring/summer green are earthly, functional colors, while black/white is celestial and romantic in the order of the worker or the thinker. The spirit of the collection is about this duality.
This September marks the publication of Yeohlee Teng’s first book, YEOHLEE : WORK material architecture, Peleus Press. The book is a survey of twenty years of her work with essays by fashion, art and design critics and curators. Yeohlee makes a reference to the book by showing a look from her Fall 1982 collection, look 8 this season.
